#388: Gram Parsons - Grievous Angel (1974)

Zack: To show you how much both Emily and I know about country music, neither of us realized that Gram Parsons was in the Byrds, which is why we are inadvertently listening to Grievous Angel (the last album Parsons recorded before he died) and Sweetheart of the Rodeo (the last Byrds album Parsons worked on) back to back. He also apparently was on that Flying Burrito Brothers album we listened to forever ago, which is a thing I did not know. Anyway, that we’re listening to these two right next to each other is completely coincidental, but it might be interesting to hear how Parsons developed what he called “Cosmic American Music” but what any normal person who is not addicted to heroin might refer to as country rock. The one Byrds album we listened to before definitely had country influences on it, but it was certainly a rock album. Grievous Angel is sort of the opposite. I really don’t hear much of the rock that’s supposed to be in its genes. It comes across mostly as a pure country album, albeit quite a good one. There’s a bit too much twang in there for we to love it as much as I do the outlaw stuff. But there are a number of songs where the twang is dialed back and the emotion is turned up. Those songs, which have a beautiful somberness to them, are the ones that really jump out. Grievous Angel, overall, is quite a good album, but it is really carried by songs like Love Hurts, In My Hour of Darkness, and $1000 Wedding. In those songs, the beauty of this album as a county masterpiece really shines. The other tracks were solid, but were mostly just filler to me.

Favorite Tracks: In My Hour of Darkness, $1000 Wedding; Love Hurts

Emily: Clearly I had no idea who Gram Parsons was when I decided to pick a Byrds album immediately after a Gram Parsons solo album. Maybe it was because there are so many Byrds albums on this list that I felt that I should pick one in this batch. And maybe it was also because the albums are in two different genres. The Byrds lean more on classic rock (we'll see about the next album), but this album was decidedly country. There was a bit of twang on some of the tracks (which as you probably know is what really turns me away from country music), but where the album really shined was in its emotion. Grievous Angel has an undercurrent of sadness on it, made all the more poignant by the fact that the album was released four months after Parsons' untimely death from a heroin overdose at the age of 26. From that sadness comes the album's strength, an emotional core that has resonated in both country and rock ever since.

Favorite Tracks: Love Hurts; In My Hour of Darkness; Hearts on Fire